Initial judgement on libraries case in second week of August?

"Although reluctant, the Judge said he might be able to say which party had won by the end of the second week of August, and then provide a full reasoned judgement in October."

From an account of Day 3 of the Brent Library case by I Spy in Queen's Park LINK

An excellent account of the second day from the Bookseller  LINK

Pullman pulls them in

PullmanThe excellent Save Kensal Rise Library  blog has a posting on yesterday's proceedings which include the morning session which I was unable to attend: HERE

There was a packed audience, including many young people, for the Philip Pullman event at Queen's Park School yesterday evening REPORT

Kiss Curls in Court - the latest from Brent Libraries hearing

I popped into the afternoon session at the High Court today to see how the case was progressing. Crammed on to an  uncomfortable, creaking bench and barely able to hear the proceedings my attention kept wandering to the back of Councillor Powney's head where beguiling kiss curls spread across his shoulders. Enough! Back to the serious stuff...

Brent Council's case was being presented and their basic claim was that their decision had been rational, based on 'the facts on the ground' (including their financial plight), that any view of the reasonableness of their decision on grounds of whether their library service was 'comprehensive and efficient' was for the Secretary of State and not the Court, and that their consultation had been thorough and followed common procedures.  They argued that Section 7 of the Libraries and Museums Act mentioned library services and facilities but not buildings as such so that guidance in the Section did not include premises. Their basic case was that the Libraries Transformation Project would give a better library service from fewer buildings.

The areas where the Council's case began to crumble a little under the judge's questioning was the timing and thoroughness of the Equalities Impact Assessment and the lack of detail in the Needs Assessment.  The judge said that the LA seemed to have only assessed needs at a very general level. He  asked if a high level decision has been made on data which had not been spelled out. He said that from the data you could not tell how particular groups, like mothers with young children or schools had been considered. They did not feature in an assessment of need for the particular fixed facility which they could attend. There was no analysis of how the Library Transformation project would cater for them.

Another issue which perplexed him, and Brent's answer hadn't yet satisfied him when the Court adjourned, was the matter of the criteria for voluntary groups to make an offer to run buildings. He was concerned about groups not being informed of the criteria and the evaluation process for bids changing over time. He also asked about whether such offers were supernumerary to what Brent considered (in its transformed state) a 'comprehensive and efficient service'.

The Council side seemed to get a little unhappier as the afternoon proceeded and the Campaigners slightly more confident but it appears that it may eventually be decided on quite narrow interpretations of terms like 'viable', 'robust', 'reasonable' and 'comprehensive'. Brent Council is arguing for a very limited concept of consultation, which is in line with their recent practice - emphasising it is not negotiation, but made great play of the pages of submissions, letters, area consultative forum meeting minutes etc - but did not tell the Court that they had ignored them all.

The proceedings will go on tomorrow morning when the case resumes in Court No 2 at 10.30am. Supporters are urged to get down to the Strand to demonstrate outside and then join the audience in the public gallery.  This helps demonstrate the strength of feeling in the community and the importance of the case.  If you are worried about getting a sore bottom, be reassured that speeches from the Council and Campaigners QCs are not likely to take much more than one and a quarters hours. The judge is unlikely to make an extempore judgement tomorrow and may announce his decision as late as August. Brent Council has promised to take no action over the six library buildings until the judgement is announced.

Brent Libraries Challenge: Day 1

A report on the first day's hearing is available HERE on the Brent Green Blog and there is an informative, and amusing,  posting on I Spy In Queen's Park HERE

The Evening Standard has an article about the case and an interview with Tim Lott HERE

I am sorry to have missed today but I hope to make it down to the Strand tomorrow afternoon.

Library case is underway

Outside the court this morning

ITN Report HERE

BBC Report HERE

A Message from Save Preston Library Campaign

Many thanks to those of you who asked to speak last night at the council meeting, where the executive hoped to vote through the disposals of the six library properties.

I was invited on Wednesday last week to speak at the exec tonight.

I wasn't sure what it was about, but further enquiries revealed that the sale of Preston Library for development (together with Tokyington, for a total "in excess of £1,000,000") was on the agenda.

The disposals of the other four libraries, including Neasden, which has disgracefully already been put on the market, with flagrant disregard for due legal process, was also on the agenda.

Of course, once alerted to the under-the-radar sales plan, library users asked to be represented at last night's exec meeting.

Having received a flood of requests at the weekend to speak about the premature plans to sell the properties, it was decided ONE AND A HALF HOURS before the meeting to withdraw the proposals at this meeting.

Had this not this not happened, Brent is likely to have started the £50,000 marketing campaign for Preston and Tokyngton.

So thank you so much for making your voices heard, on behalf of the thousands of people who signed our petition, and on behalf of the thousands of Preston Library users who can't or won't, for whatever reason.

Samantha Warrington

Brent's 4 Year Budget Strategy Agreed in 30 seconds

Councillor Butt summed up the 2012/13 to 2015/16 budget strategy up in one sentence, no one wanted to speak on it, and it was approved - all within 30 seconds. The budget envisages cumulative 'savings' of £67.5m by 2016. That works out as over £2m per second!

There was a much longer discussion over the Festivals and Events issue. Cllr Ann John said she had been in talks with the Hindu council who no longer wanted to speak. She claimed that the policy had to change because of new Equality legislation which meant that the events funded had to be inclusive and this ruled out financing religious festivals. Cllr Paul Lorber challenged this saying that Festivals such as Eid had always been open to people of all backgrounds and were designed to aid understanding and improve relations amongst Brent's diverse communities. He queried the funding of fireworks night in the context of the gunpowder plot, oppression of Catholics and the events celebration of a protestant victory. Cllr Ann John said that this festival would continue to be funded on health and safety grounds, not religious, because it prevented people being injured by providing an alternative to setting off fireworks in back gardens.

Cllr John  insisted that this year's festivals including Eid, Navaratri,Christmas lights and St Patrick's Day would still take place but the new policy would be implemented next financial year. There was no time however to properly organise Respect and Countryside Day.  Cllr Powney said that new equality legislation had drastically changed what the council could fund. The council was not stopping the festival, just stopping funding them..

There was no discussion of the Street Cleaning savings which will mean the loss of road sweeper jobs and huge reductions in street cleaning frequency. To his credit Cllr Moher was clear about the seriousness of the cuts but was cut off in mid-stream by an impatient Cllr John. Moker did manage to say that he hoped to claw back something from the current negotiations with Veolia.

Other high-speed decisions were made to approve the Alperton Master Plan, future ownership of Brent housing stock and the Arts development strategy. Twelve items were disposed of in 40 minutes much to Ann John's delight.

Embattled Brent Executive Delays Library Disposal Decision

Leader of the Council, Ann John, tonight withdrew the Asset Strategy for the disposal of vacated libraries from the Executive Agenda. She said that this was because of the proximity of the judicial review and  councillors were constrained on what they could say about the issue. Campaigners thought it was withdrawn because the Executive had thought they could slip it thought unnoticed but word spread quickly over the weekend with the Council inundated with many requests to speak today.

The Save Preston Library's 5,897 signature petition opposing any sale or redevelopment of the Preston Library site that does not include a Brent public library, will now be presented at the August Executive when the item is discussed - unless of course campaigner's win the judicial review in which case it will be irrelevant.